Yolanda Santiago, a processing technician for the Legislation and Elections Administration, looks at head moderator returns from Bridgeport, Conn., that were delivered to the Secretary of the State's office in Hartford, Conn., Friday, Nov. 5, 2010. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Photo: Jessica Hill, AP

Chris Covucci, a state field director for the Foley campaign spoke after Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch at the early morning news conference Friday, November 5, 2010. "We think the tallying process was flawed," said Covucci, "It's inaccurate to say that this is the final number."
Photo: Cathy Zuraw

As of 7 a.m. Friday, November 5, 2010, -- 59 hours after Bridgeport's election polls were supposed to have closed -- the team of vote counters were still adding up tallies in the Registrar of Voters office in McLevy Hall.
Photo: Cathy Zuraw

As of 7 a.m. Friday, November 5, 2010, -- 59 hours after Bridgeport's election polls were supposed to have closed -- the team of vote counters were still adding up tallies in the Registrar of Voters office in McLevy Hall.
Photo: Cathy Zuraw

As of 7 a.m. Friday, November 5, 2010, -- 59 hours after Bridgeport's election polls were supposed to have closed -- the team of vote counters were still adding up tallies in the Registrar of Voters office in McLevy Hall.
Photo: Cathy Zuraw

As of 7 a.m. Friday, November 5, 2010, -- 59 hours after Bridgeport's election polls were supposed to have closed -- the team of vote counters were still adding up tallies in the Registrar of Voters office in McLevy Hall. Representatives from both sides were there to keep track of the count as the numbers were tallied up.
Photo: Cathy Zuraw

HARTFORD -- Connecticut came closer to finally getting a governor-elect on Friday when Democrat Dan Malloy, of Stamford, emerged with a 5,637-vote plurality over Republican Tom Foley, of Greenwich.

But Republican activists and lawyers visited every town and city hall in the state Friday, presenting extensive Freedom of Information Act requests for voting data. Foley said he would take at least a couple of more days to review election returns before deciding to accept defeat or challenge the results in court.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, under criticism for releasing unofficial vote totals and proclaiming Malloy and running mate Nancy Wyman the apparent winners on Wednesday, announced final returns Friday night after they changed again slightly during the day.

By 6 p.m., Malloy had 566,498 votes and Foley and running mate Mark Boughton, the Danbury mayor, finished with 560,861.

Bysiewicz bailed out of a scheduled early evening news conference, leaving Av Harris, her spokesman, to tell reporters the totals could still change slightly over the next few days.

"One of the normal things about turning in election results is you have several towns that turn in amended returns that show small fluctuations," Harris said. "That is why they give you until the end of the month to certify the results, because there could be changes like that."

Malloy's margin is well above the 2,000-vote threshold that triggers a recount.

The date for Bysiewicz and other state officials to officially certify the election results is Nov. 25, but state statutes indicate Foley has until Nov. 16 -- two weeks after the election -- to file a challenge.

Malloy, who would be the first Democratic governor since William A. O'Neill left office in January 1991, stayed in the background Friday, resting a sore throat at his home in Stamford, the city where he was mayor for 14 years.

"It's good news," Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy's campaign adviser, said of the vote totals Friday night. "We've been saying since early Wednesday morning that Dan and Nancy won this election."

The inauguration date for governor coincides with the start of the next legislative session, on Jan. 5.

Foley, a multimillionaire private investor from Greenwich seeking his first elective office, told reporters in Hartford that he wouldn't concede until he, his lawyers and state Republican leaders were satisfied that they lost, fair and square.

"We're going to take whatever time it takes to get there," he said. "It may take a recount to get that certainty. Right now I'm not confident with the results."

Foley said he was prepared to accept defeat, but stressed that the more than half-million people who voted for him deserved a full accounting of where all the votes went.

At the same time, Republicans from throughout the state were filing Freedom of Information Act requests at the state's 169 town and city halls to further review vote totals.

"It's Tom Foley's call," Healy said Friday afternoon. "We're just trying to support him and get enough information for him to make a reasonable decision."

Republicans lost all the high-profile races in the state, from U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, to constitutional officers including attorney general, comptroller, secretary of the state and treasurer. Foley represents the last chance for a high-profile GOP victory.

"I'm ready to go completely to the end of hell on this," a frustrated Healy said in a phone interview.

Foley, in an interview early Friday evening, said that the GOP volunteers got cooperation from municipal officials throughout the state, except the voter registrars in Bridgeport. Officials there closed the office and went home after an all-nighter culminating in Mayor Bill Finch's dawn pronouncement that Malloy had won the city, and thus, the state.

The disclosure that a bag of ballots in McLevy Hall in Bridgeport remained uncounted Thursday evening had plunged the already chaotic governor's election into further confusion. Even before then, the Bridgeport count had been delayed, in large measure because a shortage of ballots on Election Day required hand-counting of ballots.

When they were finally released, the Bridgeport numbers were instrumental in Malloy's victory. The Democrat received 17,973 votes to 4,099 for Foley.

Asked whether he was seeking advice from outside the state, Foley said his campaign has had legal assistance from Washington, D.C., throughout this election campaign, but he wouldn't ratchet up his legal team until he was convinced he was within realistic distance of a recount.

"We haven't gotten there yet," Foley said.

Fred DeCaro III, Greenwich's Republican registrar of voters, confirmed that he received a FOIA request from Republican political operatives at 12:20 p.m. Friday. "It asks for everything," DeCaro said.

Covered in the request are ballot logs, lists of inactive voters, moderators' memos, tally sheets, official check lists, absentee ballot request lists, the number of rejected absentee ballots and the number of spoiled ballots.

DeCaro said the request came from Elizabeth Kurantowicz, the chief of staff for the state GOP.

"We're making the materials available for inspection (but) we're not photocopying everything," said DeCaro, who indicated that the materials will be ready at 8 a.m. on Monday.

Healy said that the state party's plan is to collect the raw data and bring it to the GOP headquarters in Hartford for evaluation.

Among the items that Republicans are requesting is the list of all election officials at each polling location including but not limited to the moderator, registrars, assistant registrars, ballot clerks, official checkers, tabulator tenders, demonstrators, challengers, absentee ballot counters, unofficial checkers and runners.

Occhiogrosso, Malloy's top aide, said Malloy, who lost the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary, knows what Foley is going through.

"I would say that we appreciate and respect his perspective," he said. "Only Mr. Foley can decide what the right thing to do is. Dan and Nancy are squarely focused on the transition, on what will happen when they take office. On Jan. 5, they want to hit the ground running."

During his morning news conference, Foley was asked if he was prepared to lose.

"Yes, of course," he said, laughing slightly. "You wouldn't get into politics if you ... hadn't thought through and prepared yourself for not succeeding."